Facing Gaia

Bruno Latour is one of the world's leading sociologists and anthropologists. He taught at the École des Mines in Paris from 1982 to 2006 and is now Professor at the Institut d'études politiques (Sciences Po) and Director of the Sciences Po médialab.

• ContentsIntroductionFirst Lecture: On the Instability of the (Notion of) NatureA mutation of the relation to the world ¥ Four ways to be driven crazy by ecology ¥ The instability of the nature/culture relation ¥ The invocation of human nature ¥ The recourse to the �natural world� ¥ On a great service rendered by the pseudo-controversy over the climate ¥ �Go tell your masters that the scientists are on the warpath!� ¥ In which we seek to pass from �nature� to the world ¥ How to face upSecond Lecture: How Not to (De-)Animate NatureDisturbing �truths� ¥ Describing in order to warn ¥ In which we concentrate on agency ¥ On the difficulty of distinguishing between humans and nonhumans ¥ �And yet it moves!� ¥ A new version of natural law ¥ On an unfortunate tendency to confuse cause and creation ¥ Toward a nature that would no longer be a religion?Third Lecture: Gaia, a (Finally Secular) Figure for NatureGalileo, Lovelock: Two symmetrical discoveries ¥ Gaia, an exceedingly treacherous mythical name for a scientific theory ¥ A parallel with Pasteur�s microbes ¥ Lovelock too makes micro-actors proliferate ¥ How to avoid the idea of a system? ¥ Organisms make their own environment, they do not adapt to it ¥ On a slight complication of Darwinism ¥ Space, an offspring of historyFourth Lecture: The Anthropocene and the Destruction of (the Image of) the GlobeThe Anthropocene: an innovation ¥ Mente et Malleo ¥ A debatable term for an uncertain epoch ¥ An ideal opportunity to disaggregate the figures of Man and Nature ¥ Sloterdijk or the theological origin of the image of the Sphere ¥ Confusion between Science and the Globe ¥ Tyrrell against Lovelock ¥ Feedback loops do not draw a Globe ¥ Finally, a different principle of composition ¥ Melancholia, or the end of the GlobeFifth Lecture: How to Convene the Various Peoples (of Nature)?Two Leviathans, two cosmologies ¥ How to avoid war between the gods? ¥ A perilous diplomatic project ¥ The impossible convocation of a �people of nature� ¥ How to give negotiation a chance? ¥ On the conflict between science and religion ¥ Uncertainty about the meaning of the word �end� ¥ Comparing collectives in combat ¥ Doing without any natural religionSixth Lecture: How (Not) to Put an End to the End of Times?The fateful date of 1610 ¥ Stephen Toulmin and the scientific counter-revolution ¥ In search of the religious origin of �disinhibition� ¥ The strange project of achieving Paradise on Earth ¥ Eric Voegelin and the avatars of Gnosticism ¥ On an apocalyptic origin of climate skepticism ¥ From the religious to the terrestrial by way of the secular ¥ A �people of Gaia�? ¥ How to respond when accused of producing �apocalyptic discourse�Seventh Lecture: The States (of Nature) between War and PeaceThe �Great Enclosure� of Caspar David Friedrich ¥ The end of the State of Nature ¥ On the proper dosage of Carl Schmitt ¥ �We seek to understand the normative order of the earth� ¥ on the difference between war and police work ¥ How to turn around and face Gaia? ¥ Human versus Earthbound ¥ Learning to identify the struggling territoriesEighth Lecture: How to Govern Struggling (Natural) Territories?In the Theater of Negotiations, Les Amandiers, May 2015 ¥ Learning to meet without a higher arbiter ¥ Extension of the Conference of the Parties to Nonhumans ¥ Multiplication of the parties involved ¥ Mapping the critical zones ¥ Rediscovering the meaning of the State ¥ Laudato Si� ¥ Finally, facing Gaia ¥ �Earth, earth!� Works Cited

Listed as one of Resurgence & Ecologist's 2017 Book of the Year"Facing Gaia stands as a toolbox for many disciplines. It harbours crucial insights: we are witnessing a catastrophe in which we are all implicated… Latour argues that it matters what each of us thinks and does. It will be written in clouds, spelt in stone, legible in water."Australian Book Review